7. The Secret Service and Its Prostitutes

What happened in Cartagena didn’t stay in Cartagena. A dozen Secret Service agents who were tasked with securing the area before President Obama’s arrival for the Summit of the Americas were busted for bringing prostitutes to their hotel rooms after a night of binge-drinking in the Colombian city. The April 11 incident brought attention to the Secret Service’s propensity for partying on overseas government trips — they don’t call it the “secret circus” for nothing — and raised questions about the President’s security. The scandal came to light when one of the agents refused to pay his escort — later identified as 24-year-old Dania Suarez — the full amount for her services. Following the incident, 11 agents were expelled from Colombia and placed on administrative leave, and eight of those agents were fired. Four of the former agents later argued that their behavior wasn’t “out of the ordinary” and didn’t warrant dismissal. This only led to more questions for Secret Service director Mark Sullivan, who defended the agency’s culture during a Senate hearing in May and reiterated that the actions of the group did not compromise national security. Perhaps to prevent this kind of embarrassment from happening again, the Secret Service promptly issued new rules of conduct that ban heavy drinking and bringing “guests” to hotel rooms on work trips.